ABSTRACT
Objective:
to describe the ways of promoting maternal care by the nursing team of a neonatal unit and analyze the ways of promoting this care and its interface with public policies.
Method:
a descriptive and exploratory study, with a qualitative approach, developed with 15 professionals of the nursing team who worked in the care of premature babies and their families in the neonatal unit of a university hospital located in the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The results were analyzed according to the critical analysis of discourse and interpreted under the light of the theoretical conceptions of Paulo Freire.
Results:
the social practice of nursing professionals in the promotion of maternal care was based on three modes of promotion: making them understand, making them feel and doing, and showed to be linked to the institutional ideology articulated with the public policies towards mothers in Brazil. In this sense, the modes of promotion of maternal care were directed to the fulfillment of functionalist objectives linked to specific programs, not considering the maternal demands. The discourses affiliated with a dominant ideology revealed the professionals' power relations with their mothers, with a view to meeting the promotion strategies that make up the National Breastfeeding Incentive Policy in Hospital Care, with the support of the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative and the Kangaroo Method.
Conclusion:
the nurse needs to recognize the needs of mothers in the care of the premature newborn and to promote their potential skills so that they can care for their children in the neonatal unit.
DESCRIPTORS:
Infant, Premature; Nursing, team; Intensive care units, Neonatal; Mothers; Neonatal nursing